Archive for July, 2009
“the frank sinatra rule”
image by Matheus Van Lobatos, flickr artist
as i see it (that sounds familiar [looks at blog title] oh yeah!…), there’s one rule of management which trumps them all. it’s what i like to call “the frank sinatra rule.” it’s very simple. it says: “if you’re going to delegate, be sure that you delegate all the way.” many managers struggle with this key capability. people in power want to have all the power, but share the responsibility.
quite frank-ly (see what i did there?) — that situation is hardly ever going to work.
when you delegate, there has got to also be a delegation of authority as well as responsibility. if you don’t empower those folks underneath of you to make their own decisions, then you’ve only come half-way. not to mention, from a strictly business and financial perspective, you’re paying someone many thousands of dollars to be a “deputy project manager” or “functional lead” when you could have saved that money and gotten yourself an administrative professional or intern at a far lesser cost to handle things like scheduling meetings and organizing status reports.
the difference between cool and ice cold
(part 2 of 2)
in the first part of this post, i mentioned how younger generations are leaving twitter and facebook, and how the real growth of those services has been with the older crowd. part 1 talked about the reasons more older persons are joining social media sites; this next part focuses on why the younger population is starting to veer away from them.
the problem with being cool is the risk of becoming too cool. even fonzie (or “da’ fonz” as i like to call him) wasn’t immune to this risk. a cool drink is too cold and you get pain in your teeth. slurpees and icees and slush puppies — whichever of the 900 names you’d like to give those delicious frozen drinks that make your mouth turn colors — will give you brain freeze. and, lately, it appears that facebook and twitter have been spending too much time at the back of a convenient store.
the difference between cool and ice cold
(part 1 of 2)
photo by Cipi*VT*, flickr artist
my twitter stream in the last 2 weeks or so has been mentioning the change in times for online social networking. more than a few users i follow have pointed out some recent news that popular services of twitter and facebook are becoming very unpopular with younger folks, and more of the worlds’ older generations are starting to join the fold. and while many people seemed to share the same disbelief (“but that makes no sense!”), it actually seems to be perfectly logical to me.
the reason is that there’s a difference between being cool and being ice cold.
but before i get there, let’s talk about the reasons there are more older folks joining facebook and carving out their own space in the twitterverse.
5 reasons your meetings suck
photo by tiarescott, flickr artist
i couldn’t tell you the number of times people have said to me, “i wish i wasn’t in meetings all day; i’d be able to get some actual work done for a change.” if i had a nickel for each time someone moaned or groaned about having to go to a meeting, i’d have easily paid my student loans off by now. it’s no secret: meetings suck.
but they don’t have to!
if a meeting you’re in is ever boring, or uninteresting, or leaves you totally disengaged — you’re doing it wrong. read through these 5 reasons your meetings suck, and learn from them. Read the rest of this entry »
priorities don’t work. period.
photo by stress-relief, via flickr
in my experience, setting priorities doesn’t work.
ever.
why? for one simple reason: 98% of the time, the priority is set arbitrarily. “we need you to take care of this. karen says it’s urgent.” so should you stop what you’re doing and take care of what karen asked? it depends.
“is this task on the critical path?” — whether yes or no, this answer should be the primary metric for driving your efforts. often times a manager, or the client, or someone else who may not be involved in the finer aspects of a project will ask for you to do something that doesn’t reflect the core goals of the project. just because someone “wants” something doesn’t mean that it’s the right thing for them. the critical path is a map of current tasks and their interdependencies. if one task on the critical path slips, you’re now looking down the barrel of a loaded gun called schedule creep.
more after the jump.
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